The Change
by Enid Earthling
Summary: Joan Watson misses New York. She misses her old life. She misses the dreams she had for herself there. Sherlock Holmes wants to give her all that she desires. But soon a danger from both their pasts comes to the present, forcing them to rethink what's truly important before it's too late.
1. Act 1

For the fourth time in three days Joan Watson found herself staring into the dark of her closet, a heavy sigh escaping her lips. She had forgotten herself, forgotten her surroundings. She glared sideways at her new vacuum cleaner, wondering absurdly if it was mocking her.

She had turned left after descending the stairs, walked through what she knew to be their makeshift study, past the sturdy wooden table and wall of neatly organized locks. Another left and she was at the door that led downstairs, the door that would bring her to the kitchen, to the soft warm light coming from their back garden and the smell of tea percolating in the antique kettle.

But it was only in her mind.

She wasn't in the brownstone. She was in London - 221A Baker Street.

Joan slammed the closet door shut. She hated that vacuum.

It had been months since she'd follower her partner and best friend across the Atlantic. She'd left everything and everyone behind to recreate the working environment they'd shared in New York. She had planned to live, once again, side by side, but he'd suggested she take over 221A. It was a gift to her, she knew - a measure of independence in a codependent relationship - but she hadn't wanted it.

Sherlock Holmes could read everyone, his heightened senses taking in every small detail: the curve of someone's lips, the smell of another's hands, the gait of any man, the laugh of any woman - it all told him something incredibly meaningful about them. He deduced their every secret and splashed it before them without mercy.

That first day, standing before his wall of television screens, the contents of her purse scattered at his feet, Joan had been raw and vulnerable. Yes, she had seen a lot - been through a lot - but she had never known a man like Sherlock.

Seven years later, she was often the one person he couldn't read. The contradiction often struck her, especially when he did something like suggest she live in 221A.

She hadn't moved across the world for him to end up one house over, but Sherlock couldn't see that. He thought he was helping, and Joan refused to steal back the foundation of goodwill he believed he was building.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock asked, finding her still standing before her main floor closet, so hopelessly lost in thought that she hadn't heard him come in.

Joan shook her head, raven hair loosely brushing back and forth over the middle of her back.

"Well, if you're done examining the inner workings of your closet perhaps we can reconvene our discussion."

"Our discussion?"

"About Oren's letter," Sherlock reminded her, but Joan hadn't needed one. She knew her brother's news was the cause of her distress, her confusion. His letter had made her long for the brownstone, for New York, for home.

"You still haven't told me what it said," Sherlock continued, finding his place in her large sitting room.

Joan had purposefully decorated it to match their old living quarters, at least in spirit. Gone was the tattered Oriental rug and the metal grating for lock hanging. But she had bought herself a large table and two chairs, one for each side. She'd also forgone the urge to cover her walls in art. They were saved for the pictures and maps and documents their cases always accumulated.

She had packed up Sherlock's books shortly after he fled New York. They were relatively easy to ship, and now littered the bookshelves in 221B. Each time she was there, Joan would smile seeing The Measure of Madness and The Psychology of Memory stacked among his own writings. It was measure of normalcy, as was his single stick and phrenology bust. Angus sat prominently on the fireplace mantle, just as he had in their old home.

Unfortunately, Sherlock's police scanner, collection of locks, and chest of cold case files couldn't make the journey. There was so much Joan felt she'd had to leave behind. The guilt ate at her when she'd first arrived, but over time she grew to love their new surroundings - that was until Oren's letter. Now, more than ever, she regretted leaving Clyde with Ms. Hudson. But the three month quarantine stay he would have had to endure in order to enter London would have destroyed her.

"Where have you gone?" Sherlock asked.

Again, she was drifting in and out of the present. One moment she was there, taking a seat across from him, the next she was thinking of the brownstone. She blinked hard, hoping she could roll the fantasy of their old life to the back of her mind.

"You have seemed," he paused, perhaps choosing his words carefully for her benefit, "off these last few days. And the only correlating event is the arrival of Oren's letter. You know I have always respected your privacy-"

At that Joan raised an eyebrow skeptically. Memory reminded her of every time he had barged into her room to wake her and then pick out her clothes, or his repeated attempts to insert himself into her relationship with Mycroft Holmes.

She knew Sherlock had caught her lack of conviction and corrected himself, "More recently. I have more recently been respecting your privacy, but I feel you should tell me what has caused so much distress, lest we lose another day on the Edwards case."

They hadn't lost a day on the Edwards case due to her wandering thoughts, that much she was sure of. But she also didn't want to argue with him so early in the morning. Instead, Joan got up from her table and walked to the front door and the sleek, white side table she tossed her keys on every day. It was also the spot she kept her mail, usually flyers and take out menus as not many knew her new address. After reading Oren's letter, she had placed it in the drawer there. She had thought about throwing it out. She had thought about replying - calling even. But the drawer was out of sight… sadly, it was not out of mind.

After fetching the letter, Joan returned to her chair across from Sherlock, but when she passed it to him he shook his head from side to side. He didn't want to read it, she knew. He had wanted her to confide in him.

"Oren and his wife are having a baby," Joan finally told him.

Sherlock paused for a moment and Joan watched as he went through each possible reply. This form of communication after news was something he'd begun after his brush with death. There were certain things they said to one another that deserved reflection before response - especially for him, a man who had a habit of saying whatever he thought the moment he thought it, believing it to be right and true and worthy of being heard. With Joan he made a special effort to weigh the pros and cons of his off-the-cuff remarks before speaking.

"Congratulations," he finally said. His voice turned up at the end, as if he was asking a question.

"Of course, congratulations," Joan replied, sensing his uncertainty. "It's good. It's wonderful."

"And yet you've been... sad."

Joan sighed. "It just threw me a bit, that's all. Nothing serious."

"I've found you staring at your closet twice this week, Watson. Or daydreaming during our client calls. Yesterday, you bought the wrong brand of adhesive tape. I worry when I return to my flat the collage dedicated to the Edwards case will be on the floor."

"And?"

"And something's wrong. You received Oren's letter nearly two weeks ago, and waited over five days before opening it."

"We've been busy," she reminded him.

"Not that busy, Watson," he leaned forward in his chair, his arms stretched on the table before him. For a moment, Joan wondered if he was going to reach out and take her hand. She instinctively pulled it away, tucking it into the sleeve of her black blouse.

But when she looked up, his eyes were doing what she'd feared his hands would. They were enveloping her in softness and warmth and care.

"Fine," she relented. "Knowing Oren's having a child made me think about how I will never have one of my own. Yes, you caught me; I've been sad. And that sadness has made me long for home, our old home. But it's all fleeting. Give me a day or two and I'll be fine."

Sherlock cocked his head to the right side, his eyes scanning her for information she hadn't spoken, scanning her for the truth. She hated that look, she hated feeling watched.

"We've spoken before about our respective lack of romantic prospects - mine chosen, yours…"

"Chosen," Joan finished. She wanted to assure him they were the same, they had both chosen work over romantic love.

Sherlock nodded in agreement. "But I wasn't aware you'd given up on the dream of having a child."

"I haven't given up the dream, I've just accepted reality. And the reality is I'm here now," Joan stretched her arms out, her pale hands poking out from the sleeves of her blouse once again, as she highlighted the space of her new home.

"I fail to understand how our journey across the Atlantic should halt your search for a child."

Exacerbated, Joan stood, the chair scraping loudly against the hardwood beneath it. She hadn't wanted to have this conversation. She hadn't wanted to explain.

"We both know you're not that obtuse, Sherlock. If anything, I assumed you already suspected what was happening."

"I assume nothing, Watson. Yes, I noticed you weren't actively pursuing adoption avenues, but it was coupled with a renewed optimism for our investigative work. I believed you were, dare I say, content and therefore…"

"No longer interested in having a child?"

Sherlock didn't reply.

"I like London, I really do. And I have been happy. But I haven't forgotten what drove us here."

"Drove _me_ here."

"We're partners. How many times do I have to remind you of that? Where you go, I go."

Joan walked from the table and made her way to the plush, light blue chair by her front window. She often sat there reading books - or pretending to read books while spying out on the street, taking in the sights and sounds of her new neighbourhood.

Sherlock followed her. As she sat in the chair, she pulled her feet up under her slender form. She wondered if Sherlock could sense her defensive posturing.

 _Of course he can_ , she thought.

Sherlock pulled the ottoman from its home against the chair, and sat down. Joan knew he was preparing to be serious once he formed his own hands into tight fists. The action was something he did to prevent the wild gesticulation his hands tended to perform on their own. Joan often thought his observations were like music, his hands that of a conductor moving in tandem with each new idea.

"Try as I may, Watson, I will never be able to properly explain how… content your coming here has made me. I have always believed myself to be better with you: a better investigator, perhaps a better man. But as time unfolded, I told myself there were benefits for you as well. Not only my teachings, but conceivably a confidence in your own abilities you'd lost with your medical career."

Joan didn't interject to dissuade him of the thought. He was right. She was more confident when she was solving crimes. There had been power in the scalpel she wielded as a surgeon, a power sorely lacking during her time as a sober companion. She wasn't possessed of great ego, but that power made her feel useful, desired even.

"You once told me that the only thing we know for certain in that people change. At the time, I silently disagreed. Much deduction is often borne of recognizing patterns that exist because people do not change. But together I was aware how right you were. We were both changing for, what I believed, was the better. To think now that those changes have precluded you from pursuing motherhood saddens me."

"Moving here is only part of the issue," she told him. "I'm not a citizen, so there are legal hurdles. But even if I could jump them, a quick Google search would let any adoption agency know I'm the prime suspect in a murder."

She said it.

The murder of Michael Rowan had gone largely unspoken since she'd arrived in London. Yes, there were grateful exaltations from Joan, who was still blown away daily by Sherlock's selflessness. And, yes, there were days she verbally berated him for giving up his chance to work in New York, the place he had told her he felt the most settled, the most himself.

But Sherlock had assured her it was the only option, that falling on his sword for her was something he had to do.

"It's a murder the FBI has as confession for, a confession from someone who isn't you," he reminded her.

"Well, I'm sure when I put your name down as my business partner and emergency contact no one will bat an eye," Joan cracked sarcastically.

He shifted on the ottoman, his shoulders curling uncomfortably. "Are you saying I'm the reason you can't adopt a child?"

She frowned. In fact, her whole body frowned, as she let her feet fall back to the floor. She hunched towards him and reached for those clenched fists, but stopped short, her hands just hovering in the air over his lap. "You're not the reason. I promise you."

Looking down at her hands inquisitively, Joan knew he wasn't convinced.

"Watson, you mustn't let our recent string of failures stop you from having what you want. I've stood in the way of your happiness before… and I have regretted it. But I vowed to support your urge to adopt a child from the moment you told me of your desire. I haven't changed my mind."

"Well, I've contacted three lawyers here and two back in New York. I've reached out to adoption agencies here, in Asia and Africa," Joan told him as she moved back to the comfort of the chair.

Sherlock watched as she slowly recoiled from him, tucking herself into the warmth and safety of blue fabric. "Trust me when I tell you it's just not going to happen for me."

"I can't believe I'm going to suggest this, but I could call my father."

For the first time since he arrived, Joan smiled - laughed a little even. "I have no doubt your father could steal me a baby… but that's not going to lessen our image as criminals on the run."

"One criminal, one," he told her again. "And only in the eyes of the insipid FBI agents who insisted on your guilt."

Joan nodded in agreement.

"There must be something else we can do," he said, almost to himself, as if he was formulating a plan she couldn't see.

"This is why I didn't want to tell you about Oren's letter, about… well, all of this."

"Because I would try to help?" Sherlock asked incredulously.

"Because you would make me one of your cases," she replied. "I don't need fixing, Sherlock. It's just something that's happening. In fact, it's already happened. And there's nothing to be done."

She gave Sherlock a stern look, trying to push her own resolve onto him, but she knew that was useless. He would agree for her sake, and then go back to 221B and make personal inquiries into how she could procure a child. Private adoption wasn't out of the question, she knew, and soon he would come to that conclusion as well. It would lead to nights of them eating Thai takeout and searching the web for young girls interested in finding new parents for their soon-to-be-born babies. It would make him involved, more involved than she was sure he had initially promised to be, and she didn't want that for him.

Sherlock suddenly stood, pressing the ottoman back with his left foot. Joan was used to his erratic movements, and didn't follow suit.

"The Edwards case," he proclaimed. "A distraction, yes."

"Yes," Joan told him.

"Your place or mine?"

Joan looked around her new home and longed once again for the old one. She decided she needed to see Angus. "Yours."

"I need food," he said. "Let me get us breakfast. Meet in 20 minutes."

Joan didn't reply, but she wouldn't miss it.

Sherlock marched to the front door. He paused for a moment, his back to Joan. She wondered if he was preparing to apologize. He did that too often, she thought. But Joan knew that had she really killed Michael that night in the brownstone, if she had done it in self-defence there would be no complications now. Some nights she dreamt of that life: they still lived together in New York, they still loved and worked with Captain Gregson, they still called Detective Bell family. But the dream included something new: a baby. There in the study she imagined a playpen, her child laughing and cooing as she and her partner solved case after case.

 _Sherlock has nothing to say sorry for_ , she thought. _The fault is mine._

But he didn't say anything. He left. And when Joan was sure he was halfway down the block, on his way to the coffee shop she loved, the tears began to flow. The stream was fast and hot, and it overwhelmed her. She hadn't realized she was holding in that much grief, but she always tempered her moods around Sherlock. With him gone there was nothing forcing her to be strong or stoic. With him gone she was safe to be weak and broken.

But almost as soon as the tears came she pulled them back in, willing herself to stop. Bringing the palms of her hands to her cheeks, she patted her soft, pale skin and pressed the salty water into her own pores. After a minute or two of steady, forceful breathing Joan knew it was over. Her outburst was done.

Sighing, she stood. He bare feet padded across the hardwood back to the main table, and Oren's letter. She walked back to her front door, to the side table, and placed the letter gently in its place.

A knock startled her just as the drawer closed. Joan righted herself, inhaling deep, before peering through the peephole of her door.

There was no one there.

She wondered if it had been Sherlock hurriedly knocking to let her know he was back, but that didn't seem like something he would do. Then again, crying didn't seem like something she would do and yet looking down at her blouse she could make out the tiny splotches of darker black fabric made by her tears.

Joan opened the unlocked door and peered outside, craning her head from side to side. There was no one on her stoop, but when she looked down she spied a box wrapped in brown paper. Joan tentatively picked up the package and brought it inside.

Back at the table, she gently peeled the paper from the package. She wondered if it could be a trap, perhaps even a bomb, but then chuckled to herself. It seemed silly, even in their dangerous line of work, to think someone could be targeting them. Not in London.

But as the paper folded back, Joan could see the scrawled writing on the box: Sherlock.

 _Why would a package for Sherlock be at my door?_ she thought, just as a hand wrapped around her waist, another over her mouth.

It was, sadly, a familiar feeling. One that forced a visceral and immediate reaction. Joan pressed her body back hard and she and her would-be captor fell into the opposite wall. He let her go, and without looking back Joan ran to the back door of her flat. She could hear the man scrambling to his feet, his boots clacking on the hardwood as he followed. But Joan didn't stop. She ran for the door, her fingers fumbling on the deadbolt.

 _It's already unlocked_ , she thought. _Why?_

She was actually turning it the wrong way. She was taking too much time. He was there, almost on top of her, as she finally pulled the back door open. It crashed against him as she slipped out into the morning sun, running straight into the hard, muscled chest of a second man. He grabbed her, his hands on her upper arms squeezing tight.

At that moment, Joan wished she was the kind of woman who screamed, like the women in movies. But even when she was kidnapped by Le Milieu, even when she was being beaten by Michael, she hadn't screamed. It wasn't in her nature.

But as she heard Sherlock in 221B, in his back kitchen laying out the treats he had just bought her, she opened her mouth to call out to him. Her effort was stifled by a gloved hand. The first man was again behind her, and together the two men dragged her back into her own flat and gently closed the door.


	2. Act 2

After precisely 20 minutes Sherlock Holmes turned off the burner and removed the kettle from its perch on the hot element. There was no need to boil the water to the point of evaporation. Watson was late. Not unusual, certainly in the last week, but he had just seen her, just spoken to her, just confirmed their plans.

Sherlock broke dates and commitments all the time, but never with Watson - at least not without good reason. Over a year ago, when he missed Shinwell's service, he had hurt her deeply. Yes, that plan had been hard to keep in the midst of his mental degradation, but the look on her face when she confronted him about his whereabouts that night was one he'd never forget. Now he made every effort to be exactly where he'd promised when Watson was concerned.

Sadly, she wasn't always as prudent. It was a reversal of actions. He was becoming more like the Joan Watson he'd met seven years ago, the Watson who lied to him about still being his sober companion in order to see him through the toughest of times, the Watson who refused to let the memory of Irene Adler stop him from opening up to others, the Watson who stood toe-to-toe with his father refusing to let the elder Homes hurt his son again.

Knowing about Oren's letter and his impending fatherhood calmed the nerves Sherlock had felt for the past two weeks. He had sensed Joan slipping away and worried that once again she was preparing to leave him, but instead she was simply mourning a loss. He had once told her of the sacrifices they would each make to become the best in their investigative field, but he posited those loses were more acutely felt in the face of Oren's news.

Sherlock shook his head, sighing. He had missed the culmination of her sadness, one that should have been suspected when coupled with the email Joan received from her old friend Emily. It was a birth announcement, accompanied by a postscript stating that while Emily would have loved Joan to be the godmother her absence meant another had to be chosen. Joan had written back her congratulations and called the next day, her voice so full of happiness Sherlock could hear it through the wall between their two flats. He should have known that happiness was a rouse.

Watson had missed a vital clue on a case they were working that week. Yes, it had been corrected, but the guilty party had two more days of freedom due to the mistake. Sherlock had shrugged it off. She'd only arrived in town one month before. He foolishly told himself it was prolonged jet lag, a kind of slowed acclimation to her new surroundings, but now he knew she had been sad.

Sadness might have been a motivator for the masters of great art and literature, but to Joan Watson it was an investigative killer - one that needed to be quickly caught and locked away.

Sherlock closed the box of baked goods he'd purchased from the coffee shop they liked to frequent on weekdays, and made his way to 221A Baker Street. Perhaps she had fallen asleep in the big chair by the window, he told himself, still tucked softly in its folds just as he had left her. He imagined her there, sweetly sleeping, her trusty red cardigan laying over her lap for warmth.

As Sherlock stepped out of 221B, locking the door behind him, he silently cursed their London living arrangements.

The physical distance between them had made sudden revelations about a case hard to express. Had he been a forgetful man he would have filled countless legal pads with his musings on every suspect and their conceivable motives.

Thankfully, he remembered it all - every tangent, every dangling thread that required a mental pull. And each morning he would regale his partner with a retelling of the path his mind had taken the night before. She indulged him, knowing it was part of his process, yet Sherlock

couldn't help but miss the times he was able to holler her name or barge into her room. He felt more at ease the closer she was, and his revelations about a case poured out more organically. She was his personal tonic, always giving him exactly what he needed.

Sherlock couldn't remember the specifics of why he'd decided she should live in 221A upon her arrival in London. At times he told himself it was to reward her for having made the sacrifice of leaving everything she'd known to follow him. She deserved space, privacy, and independence. But as the days, weeks, and months went on Sherlock suspected he'd placed Watson next door not to give her something, but to free himself of the crushing guilt he felt.

She would tell him guilt was unnecessary, he knew, but Sherlock feared there had been another option he'd been too weak to seek out. There was a deadline - confess to Michael Rowan's murder before Joan was arrested herself. Had that deadline not existed could he have found a way to save Joan, keep his relationship with Captain Gregson intact, and ensure his friend's daughter would not go to jail? It was a question without an answer… and Sherlock hated that.

He was still thinking of ways he'd failed Joan as he trudged up the front steps to 221A and opened the unlocked front door without knocking. He never knocked.

The flat felt eerily cold. Despite the fact that he'd been there less than half an hour before, the warmth that usually emanated from any space Joan Watson could be found in was absent.

As he prepared to call out for his partner, Sherlock heard the distinct sound of one of Joan's chairs scraping against the hardwood in the main room. He took four large steps forward and a nightmare came into view.

Joan was sitting in the chair he had occupied just minutes before. Her arms were pulled tight behind her, obviously tied behind the back of the chair. Her head was hanging low, her straight black hair obscuring her pale, forlorn face.

To her right stood a man dressed in a dark grey suit and black pea coat, holding a handgun firmly to the side of Watson's head.

To her left, Sherlock spied a second man sitting in the light blue chair. He was also well dressed, styled in sleek black trousers and a deep brown leather jacket. And he was also holding a handgun.

"Gentleman," Sherlock said, his jaw clenched in anger.

He waited for them to reply, or for Watson to acknowledge his presence. Neither came, and so Sherlock stepped closer to the table his best friend sat behind.

The second man stood and raised his gun, but not at Sherlock. Instead, he used it to point at the package on the table.

Sherlock knew he was silently, but forcefully being directed to open the package and reluctantly complied.

As he moved to the table, Watson finally peeked through the curtain of raven hair and caught his eye. Sherlock had to control himself when the crimson stain on her lip came into view. It was blood. Her bottom lip was swollen, the cut open and oozing. For a moment, Sherlock thought she'd been hit, but a slight groan from the second man caused his senses to crackle.

The second man was right handed, Sherlock could tell - his shoelaces had been tied in a distinctive knot pattern and his watch sat snugly on his left wrist. But he was holding his weapon in his non-dominant hand, his right stuffed inside the pocket of his jacket. The grimace on the man's face told Sherlock he was in pain.

Sherlock smiled, admiration overwhelming him. He knew Joan must have bit him… hard. Perhaps the man had tried to cover her mouth and she'd clamped down on his hand, her teeth sinking through his glove and puncturing the skin. The cut on her mouth likely came as the man pulled his hand away, Joan's grip only tightening.

He watched as she gently licked the wound, her pink tongue tentatively touching the blood on her lip. It was as if she was checking to see if it was healing, but it had only opened minutes before. Sherlock wondered if it had happened while he was preparing her tea. Had she been struggling with her captors while he was setting her breakfast on the kitchen table just one flat over? If so, he thought, it was reason enough to ensure they never lived apart again.

Sherlock brought his attention back to the package. On the front of the box his own name was scrawled in black ink. The handwriting was distinctive and familiar.

Once all the paper was pulled back, Sherlock lifted the top and peered inside. There he found a light brown folder stuffed with pages and a small white cue card that read: solve me or end up like your partner.

It appeared Jamie Moriarty might be playing games with him again.

Sherlock placed his hands behind his own back. "I choose option two."

XXXXXXXXXX

10 minutes later, after the two armed men had each looked inside the box and read the note, Sherlock had convinced them to tie him to a chair just like his partner. After all, it was what the cue card had demanded once Sherlock had made his choice. And so he sat, arms constrained behind his back, in a chair next to Watson.

The men had, of course, argued in hushed tones once it was done. Had they been meant to take Joan Watson elsewhere? Or perhaps even kill her? They must have done something wrong because the threat of being tied to a chair seemed ridiculously mundane, particularly if Moriarty was involved.

"Moriarty?" Watson asked, her voice was low and grave, her head still dipped.

Sherlock nodded in agreement. "The handwriting on the box gave it away," he whispered. "Strangely, the writing on the card within is most assuredly not hers."

The man in the grey suit fished a cell phone from his coat pocket and dialled a pre-set number before stepping out of the room. Sherlock heard the back door open and close. He knew the man was outside - that there was only one captor to deal with. He knew he could easily get out of his restraints, a cheap pair of handcuffs - another detail Moriarty would have insisted against. But the second man was leaning against the far wall, by the closet he had found Joan staring into earlier that morning, and his gun was pointed in their direction.

"Are you alright?" Sherlock asked Joan, taking what little time they might have to access the situation before he proceeded with any unnecessary heroics. If she was alright, save for her cut lip, perhaps Sherlock could talk his way out of this dilemma rather than stage a fight they could surely lose, given their lack of weapons.

"Yeah," Joan replied, but again her voice was strangled in her throat. Sherlock wondered if she had been crying. Yes, it wasn't unusual for her to be tied to a chair, but perhaps that was why it was so hard for her to comprehend. How much suffering was one woman supposed to take as the partner of the great Sherlock Holmes?

 _Not this much,_ he thought. _Never this much._

"Let me look at you," he said, and after what felt like an eternity Joan complied.

"Watson," he whispered.

He had been wrong earlier. It wasn't just her cut lip. She had been hit or thrown or stuck against something, because her right eye was bloodshot and the beginning of a bruise was forming above her eyebrow. It was the same sight he saw the night he came back to the brownstone and found her sitting in the front hall, clutching an airplane part covered in Michael's blood.

She had been panting that night, the adrenaline bubbling just under her skin. But now she seemed resigned to her fate. Her fight appeared to be gone.

"Oh, Watson," he continued.

"It's fine. I'm fine," she told him assuredly. "Let's just figure out what's going and get out of this."

He knew she was right.

"What was in the box?"

"A folder, a case. And a cue card telling me solve it or end up like my partner," he scoffed at the last part. "So, I chose to end up like you."

"Tied to a chair."

"Well, it seemed better than the alternative."

"Of solving another one of Moriarty's cold cases?" Joan asked. "I thought she was in hiding after her escape. Your father is in charge of the organization now, so why is she doing this?"

"I'm not entirely sure she is," he replied, still trying to keep his voice low. The man in the leather jacket, the man Joan had bit, was still holding a gun to them, but he seemed disinterested in their chatter. And even if he could clearly hear them, Sherlock thought, it wouldn't hurt to lay out the events since their captors seemed just as confused as he and Joan.

"The handwriting, " Joan said, reminding Sherlock of his earlier deducement.

"Yes, the handwriting on the card is not hers. So, we must question her involvement. Perhaps she is behind this and simply allowed an underling to fill the box's contents."

Joan sighed. "Or someone is using an old sample of her writing to lure you into working for them under the threat of Moriarty."

"But then why not forge her handwriting inside? Or use a typed memo? It's as if someone wants me to recognize the contradiction in form."

"Or maybe-" Joan coughed then, her voice cut by the sputter in her throat. She inhaled deep, trying to catch what little breath she seemed to have.

Sherlock did not ask again if she was alright - he knew her indignation would be searing. Instead, he let her collect herself. She seemed weak, too weak, and it made him question what else was done to her when he was foolishly looking the other way.

"Or maybe," she continued, "Whoever is behind this didn't know you'd be able to tell the difference in each sample of handwriting."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and Watson nodded in silent understanding. Of course whoever was behind this knew or else they wouldn't have bothered. But the shoddy henchmen, the mismatched writing, and the handcuffs he had already popped open and closed twice while he and Watson were talking led him to believe Moriarty was not their villain this time. Perhaps she too was a pawn in this game.

"I guess this puts that other stuff into perspective," Watson suddenly said. Sherlock looked at her inquisitively, catching the glistening white spots of her battered and bloody eye. "The baby stuff," she relented. "No point in pursuing that when this is our job… when this is my life."

Sherlock had no good reply. Was he meant to assure her things would not always be this way? A lie, to be sure. Or perhaps he was supposed to tell her that all lives led carry some risk and to deny herself the chance at motherhood because of it would be ill advised? A half-truth, he knew.

Instead, he told her, "Whatever you decide, however you want to proceed, I am now and forever firmly with you."

Joan smiled, the cut on her lip opening wider. She winced slightly, but her smile returned to form. Sherlock knew it was a silly thing to say - a declaration more akin to the kind found in television series and feature films. A declaration not unlike the fake one he had given her the first time they met when he recited from memory a deplorably written line about love at first sight to a woman he'd only just laid eyes on. And yet, despite knowing how strange his words seemed, they had the desired effect - then and now. Then: to show her how capable he was. Now: to show her how capable he was of being by her side, of following her lead. Seven years ago that would have been impossible.

"I know you will," Joan whispered, once her smile had fully faded.

"Although, impending motherhood might increase our chances of getting out of here," he quipped, begging the smile to return.

Joan didn't take the bait. "What? Am I supposed to say, 'Gentleman, don't kill me. I might be a mother one day'? Because I don't think that's going to do the trick."

"I don't think they're doing to kill us, regardless. This one," he motioned with a twitch of his head towards the man in the leather jacket, "does not have the stomach for it."

"The other one does," Joan replied. Sherlock cringed. He didn't want her to explain how she knew that.

"But perhaps if you had morning sickness or a terrible inclination to relieve yourself they would be willing to uncuff you."

"Well, if it helps, I am feeling nauseous."

"That's the spirit."

"But if they uncuff me, what about you?"

"I've already undone my woefully inadequate restraints three times," he told her - the third time just seconds before. His voice revealed to her his disgust in the hardware chosen, but they both knew he would have found an escape to almost any handcuff, rope, or chain imaginable. Sherlock often expected too much of others, even criminals, but they needn't make it so easy to defeat them. It lessened the satisfaction when the finally met their ends at his hands.

"Then why aren't you doing something?" Joan asked, again her voice listing.

Sherlock's displeasure at her comment coloured his face. "And endanger you? I think not, Watson."

At that moment, the back door creaked open and, after a slam, the man in the grey suit strode back into the main room. He walked over to his partner and whispered something in his ear, while covering the view of his own mouth with his gloved hand.

 _Clever,_ Sherlock thought. He wondered how they knew he could read lips.

"Change of plans," the first man suddenly said. He turned to face Sherlock and Joan. "You stay here," he said, pointing his gun at Joan. "And you come with me."

Sherlock stared down the barrel of the handgun as it turned squarely at his face. "Excuse me, but the note inside that box was clear. I've chosen not to solve the case there within, so unless you have-"

His words were cut off by Joan coughing again. This time the action was more aggressive, a drier, heavier heave. As Sherlock watched, tiny splatters of blood escaped her open mouth and landed on the table before them.

"Solve the case or end up like your partner." The first man recited the note with confidence. It was obvious whatever he was told over the phone had laid his concerns to rest. It was obvious something was happening to Joan.

Sherlock took her in once more: the bruise over her eye, the cut on her lip… but now he saw the sweat on her brow and the flush in her cheeks. Again, she was inhaling deep, her breath continuously catching in her own chest. She was starving for air, it seemed.

"You've been poisoned," he said. The look on her face gave nothing away, no hint of surprise. He suspected she knew - she was a doctor, after all. And she was the one struggling against the symptoms placed upon her.

 _But how long had she know?_ he wondered. When she told him just moments before that there was no need to pursue motherhood because this was her life, had it been a declaration of defeat? Sherlock didn't want to think that, didn't want to accept that.

Suddenly, he stood. The cuffs dropped to the floor with a loud, metallic clank. Both men raised their guns to Sherlock, centre mass, but he ignored them.

"Shall we start?"


End file.
